Minority students to get the ‘cutting edge’

To enable students from minority communities to get jobs apart from the public sector, the Ministry of Minority Affairs has put in place a coaching scheme on the lines of the Sachar Committee recommendations.

To enable students from minority communities to get jobs apart from the public sector, the Ministry of Minority Affairs has put in place a coaching scheme on the lines of the Sachar Committee recommendations. Coaching will also be available for government sector jobs and for securing admission in technical and professional courses.

The ministry says the scheme would have “built-in” resilience to adapt to “market dynamics on a continuous basis” besides ensuring that students are not deprived of the “professional acumen demanded by changing/emerging market needs and opportunities for employment at domestic as well as international levels”.

The private sectors for which the students whose family’s annual income is less than Rs 2.5 lakh can apply include jobs in airlines, shipping, information technology, business process outsourcing (BPO) and other IT-enabled services, hospitality, tours and travels, maritime, food processing, retail, sales & marketing, bio-technology and other such job-oriented courses that emerge in tandem with economy’s growth and development.

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For joining such courses, selected students will get a coaching fee of maximum Rs 20,000. The students will also get stipends. While the outstation students get a stipend of Rs 1,500, the local students will get Rs 750.

The same fund-structure is available for getting coaching in Group A services of the government and technical and professional course entrances. While the coaching fee for Group B services is a maximum of Rs 15,000, that for Group C is Rs 10,000. The stipend amounts remain the same in all these categories.

While government institutes can send proposals directly to the Ministry of Minority Affairs, organisations in the private sector, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), should submit their proposals through the state Government/UT administration concerned. The state governments/UT administrations will conduct necessary inspection of the coaching institute with respect to eligibility and feasibility of the project proposal and forward the proposal with specific recommendations to the ministry.

Candidates must have secured the requisite percentage of marks in the qualifying examination prescribed for admission into the desired courses/recruitment examinations.

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Students covered under the scheme will have to attend all classes. “In the event of any student remaining absent for more than 15 days without any valid reason or leaving the coaching midway, the entire expenditure incurred on the candidate will be recovered from the institute concerned,” say the guidelines.